These files provide a simple bash script for quickly deploying multiple octoprint instances on a single computer (Ubuntu/debian based systems).
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Install Ubuntu on computer of interest.
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Install Octoprint. You can follow the directions here: https://octoprint.org/download/ or here: https://community.octoprint.org/t/setting-up-octoprint-on-a-raspberry-pi-running-raspbian/2337
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Start up Octoprint for the first time to setup a base instance profile (running on localhost:5000). The base profile will be edited in several places with
INSTANCE
to allow modifications during deployment. You can make this as extensive as you like as far as adding different printers, plugins, etc. They can be added for each instance later. This only needs to be done once. -
During setup, edit the restart script:
sudo systemctl restart INSTANCE
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After the initial setup is done, reload the server and edit the Additional Serial Port field:
/dev/octo_INSTANCE
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You can also edit the server name under apperance with:
INSTANCE
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SAVE your changes, then STOP your currently running octoprint server (Ctrl+C in the terminal you started is sufficient)
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Make sure whichever printer you are installing for is not plugged in via USB
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Go to wherever you downloaded octoprint_deploy:
$ cd octoprint_deploy
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Run the bash script:
$ sudo ./addnew_printer.sh
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And follow the instructions. Defaults are shown in brackets. ENTER accepts defaults:
UNPLUG PRINTER FROM USB
Enter the name for new printer/instance:
printer01
Port on which this instance will run (ENTER will increment last value in /etc/octoprint_ports):
Selected port is: 5000
Octoprint Daemon User [paul]:
Octoprint Daemon Path [/home/paul/OctoPrint/venv/bin/octoprint]:
Octoprint Config Path [/home/paul/]:
Auto-detect printer serial number for udev entry?y
Plug your printer in via USB now (detection time-out in 2 min)
Serial number detected as: AL03M8MG
Octoprint instance template base folder [/home/paul/.octoprint]:
Do you want to proceed? y
This will do the following:
- Copy everything in ~/.octoprint to ~/.printer01 with the modifications for a server instance on port 5000
- Update udev rules so this printer will always be at port /dev/octo_printer01
- Create, start, and enable the service printer01 to control that octoprint instance.
You can now go through and run the script for each printer you want connected to the computer. The limit of instances you can run will likely be dependent on your computer hardware, but I have run 11 printers on an old Core 2 Duo with 4Gb of RAM without issue.
Because each octoprint instance is coming from the same source files, any global modifications you make to octoprint (adding/removing plugins, updating octoprint) are all automatically applied to all of your instances and will take effect when you restart that instance.
You likely want to allow the user that is running the octoprint instance (paul in the example) to start/stop/restart services. This can be accomplished with: sudo visudo
. It is recommended to read up on how to do this without a password. Most generall this can be done by adding paul ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL
to the sudoers file. However, THERE ARE RISKS TO DOING THIS, so consider wisely.